Santa Claus Facts....

[Bazzlad]

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop our of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh an move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purpose of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75« million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 time the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, the conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload -not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas!

[MadduckUK]

you forgot one important factor there bazzer

MAGIC


also: can a reindeer really only run 15 miles per hour? thats pretty damn slow!

[JK Ferret]

Hrm.. I'll have to mention that to a few people. Also, on a physics/English note, there's no such thing as centrifugal, it's centripetal

[Howard]

Originally Posted by Elyk

Hrm.. I'll have to mention that to a few people. Also, on a physics/English note, there's no such thing as centrifugal, it's centripetal

Erm

They're opposites!

[Bazzlad]

Was the article right or wrong then? :S

[Rack]

Centrifugal force is a fake force made up to explain why something spinning wants to fly outwards. Really it is just momentum that wants to maintain a straight line.

[Whiternoise]

Originally Posted by Bazzlad

For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

T'aint on Earth then is it

Maybe he just uses wormholes..

[TeePee]

Originally Posted by Rack

Centrifugal force is a fake force made up to explain why something spinning wants to fly outwards. Really it is just momentum that wants to maintain a straight line.

True dat. A more important consideration would be weight and balance. See, those reindeer provide the lift, stacked up at the front of the sleigh and yet all of that payload is at the rear. This is basically an excessive aft CG, to the pointwhere the CG is behind the centre of pressure. This would lead to a negative static stability about the longditudonal axis, leading to an unrecoverable stall. To counter this, Rudolph needs to start piling on the pounds.

An additional problem would be that at that T/O weight, even assuming it falls into the 'Experimental' aircraft category, Santa is going to need some kind of rating to fly it, even if thats a 'Lighter Than Air' rating due to magic. Mr. S Claus is not listed in the FAAs Airmen certification database at: http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certific...irmen_inquiry/

Better hope he doesn't get ramp checked..

[badass]

Originally Posted by Elyk

Hrm.. I'll have to mention that to a few people. Also, on a physics/English note, there's no such thing as centrifugal, it's centripetal

Ahem, then why does the word exist.
Newtons 3rd law - every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Centripetal force if the force on the object orbiting that makes it orbit rather than carry on in a straight line.
Centrifigal force is the reaction force on the object thats "pulling" it in.
e.g. I spin a conker on my finger with a bit fo string. Centripetal force=force of string on conker. Centrifugal force=force on string.
I think what you mean is there is no such thing as centrifugal acceleration










Disclaimer. I am only 90% sure of this. It is 10 years since I studied physics.

[TeePee]

10% correct.

The spinning conker is accellerating, since it's velocity is changing in direction, not necessarily magnitude, and so the forces on it are unbalanced. The centripetal force is both the force on the conker and on your finger. You excert the force on the string, it exerts the same force on the conker as it's inelastic.

The 'centrifugal force' is simply an effect of a change in inertia. Imagine, for example, you are stood on a train which brakes to a halt. You feel a 'force' pulling you forward, but in reality the only force is the friction of the wheels against the track stopping the train (and your feet against the floor). The force is required to cause an acceleration or deceleration. Your tendancy to move forward is an effect of inertia. There is no force pushing you.
t's much the same when the train turns a corner. You fell the 'force' pushing you sideways, but the only real force is the wheels on the track causing the acceleration. What you feel is your inertia.

[IBM]

Originally Posted by Bazzlad

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Pretty damn stupid 17 years olds, believing in Father Christmas...

[Whiternoise]

"Centripetal's in a spin, all the time it's pulling in,
Centrifugal's worth a try, so let go string and watch balls fly"

Also.. how many people do you know that have 3-4 kids? Most people have two at most. Surely we can cut that 91.8 million down a bit.

[BlindMelon7]

Don't forget all the homeless children. Everyone knows they don't get presents!

[Whiternoise]

I stand corrected!

[TeePee]

No chimney...

[bsodmike]

I think Santa just assumes that most kids have been naughty (aren't they really?) and stays in the North Pole with this elves having eggnog, while the parents do his job for him. I think he finds 'outsourcing' his work to be more cost effective